The Sixers are back at it tonight against Charlotte (7 pm).
While the Hornets aren't necessarily contenders, they are significantly better than most of the slop the Sixers have been wiping the floor with lately. Charlotte has won six of their last eight games to improve to 22-19 on the season, good for the 7th spot in the East, with their most recent win coming against the Bucks.
Of particular note is that the Hornets are mostly healthy and available: only Vernon Carey and Kelly Oubre are currently out, as both are in the league's health and safety protocols.
Still, the Sixers certainly have a strong chance to pick up their 8th win in a row, in no small part because the question of "who the hell guards Embiid" is a big one for Charlotte to try to solve. Embiid put up 43-15-7 on the Hornets back on December 6th, then followed it up with 32-8-4 in 32 minutes against the same Charlotte squad two days later.
In today's newsletter:
- A note on trade restrictions.
- Sixers sign Charlie Brown Jr to a two-way deal.
- Previewing the Hornets.
- Link roundup.
I was asked twice yesterday about trade restrictions around certain players, specifically with people who were confused about when Furkan Korkmaz is eligible to be traded.
The confusion seems to stem from a trade machine made by Fanspo.com, which stated that Korkmaz wasn't eligible to be traded until March 3rd, which is after the February 10th trade deadline. It also includes that restriction on some other players around the league, including one (John Collins) who recently popped up in trade rumors.
To be clear, these players are eligible to be traded on January 15th.
These players fall into a bucket of players who a) were re-signed by their previous teams, b) who were over the cap, c) who used Bird rights to do so, and d) received a raise of greater than 20% over their previous year's salary. These players are placed under a restriction that they can't be traded until January 15th, or three months after signing, whichever is later.
As it was pointed out to me on Twitter, Fanspo's mistake is that they are still using last season's date and are incorrectly applying it to this year's deadline as well. As a reminder, last year was an anomaly because the start of the season was delayed until late December. For this year, the rule reverted back to its typical January 15th deadline.
tl;dr: Korkmaz is eligible to be traded in a few days and you are free to add him back into all of your fake Ben Simmons trades if you desire. If you run into anyone claiming that a player can't be traded until March 3rd, you can safely ignore it.
